HP Got it right and then some!

I've stayed away from HP for quite a while, since I am a very intensive "graphics/photo" person, particularly at work, where I have this printer. I tended to lean more toward Canon, which I've always had excellent results from for home use (after trying Lexmark, HP and most recently wasting too much on an Epson CX6600 that died after about 100 pages, see my review on that too, and I beg you, don't buy an Epson, no matter what).

At my job, I'm kind of at the mercy of the IT department and the need to have a "networked" printer (even though it's not shared with anyone, to my knowledge, and hooks directly to my PC?). Originally, I had an HP7210 (?) all in one model, which, other than the auto document feeder (very handy for scanning multi-page documents into OCR), totally sucked and started misfeeding within about 3 months. I print probably around 20 pages a day as "proofs" on various types of paper and cardstock.

I was less than thrilled when, after asking for a Canon (after about 3 months of having to hand feed single sheets of paper to lessen the chance of jamming of my printer), the IT department proudly announced they'd bought me another HP, adding (to their chagrin) "it's the best available and you've got the best printer in the company". Now these are people who see no use for "graphical user interfaces" (i.e. "if you can't do it in code/text, it doesn't matter anyway, and slows down performance"), with little empathy for a corporate "graphics" person. My mood changed when I expected a monsterous dinosaur, and I saw the sleek machine only taking up about 2/3 of the space on my desk as my former printer.

I turned the printer on and the first noticable difference was a pleasant digital "chime" rather than the typical "chirp" notifying that the printer was on or needed paper (seems really dumb, but after hearing the annoying chirp almost incesantly for the past several months for every error, every jam, it was a nice change). Nothing to do with printing, of course, but a lot to do with environment if you're stuck with a printer all day at your job-and after hearing "chirping" on a regular basis, you'd appreciate it too.

I ran it through it's paces quickly.

SCANNING: 4800x1200. "Warmed up" much faster than other models I've used and presents a "preview" within a few seconds, rather than minutes. I've used this for scanning documents for OCR (Optical Character Recognition; to convert a hardcopy of a document into editable text) and the results are more accurate than with other models, however, the lack of an auto document feeder is a big drawback here as my experience has usually been cases where it's a multi-page document no one can find the original electronic copy of and no one wants to retype. Note: Items like complex forms, tables, labels and spreadsheets will not scan to OCR very well.

*UPDATE* I don't know if it's now a common feature, this is more specific to the application I suppose, but a handy feature I discovered (not being one to read manuals) was that you can place multiple photos on the scanning bed, and select an option to scan them each into separate files. This greatly saves time if you have a stack of photos to scan.

OPERATION:There are slots for "SmartCards" and front "firewire" connections. I personally don't like all the additional "director" software included, however, for a beginning or average homeuser, this seems like it would make any process very easy and straightforward, and would quickly get you to the results you want. There's even built-in photo correction software.

BLUETOOTH/WIRELESS:This was purchased for me at my job because it can be networked. Anyone at home with a wireless network would no doubt appreciate the wireless capability.

COPYING Piece of cake. Formerly, I needed to scan something and print in color, with this, simply put the color item on the flatbed and push "copy/color" and the number of copies you want.

NEGATIVES: This comes with an additional tray to put negatives or slides in to scan and print digitally and has an easy to use setting to do so.

There is a main digital guide on the front of the printer that asks you what you want to do (by default shows the status of the machine-with a pleasant cartoon icon) and you can easily scroll through the menu to choose (unlike the Epson's "guide" that has buttons everywhere for no apparent reason except to push). I don't use that personally, so I don't fully know how helpful it would be-it seems as though it would be very helpful because it steps users through typical functions by asking questions about what you want to do. What I really noticed was that the paper feeding was very quiet, fast, smooth and the margins (finally from HP) were perfectly straight. Again, if you run out of paper, there's a nice "chime" to remind you.

PRINTING:I immediately needed to print out about 50 pages of "normal quality" full page, full color certificates on cardstock when I got this. It smoothly zipped through them, even on "fast normal" (a new setting I'd never seen before), the color results were clean and smooth. AND, after printing 50 pages, hardly any ink was used.

** "FAST/DRAFT" You can print off a faint, full color draft in about 3-5 seconds. There may be some gapping in text prints, but not enough that it's not readable (as on some HP models). If you're doing just plain text, but this is where the 32ppm (pages per minute) comes in, and they'll print at around 2 seconds per page, with some gapping (you wouldn't necessarily want to use this setting for an intricate recipe or instructions---the results seem to vary for some reason).

** "FAST/NORMAL" This will do a full color print in around 10 seconds (I'd guess). It's an in-between setting of draft and normal, uses the least amount of ink, but has better coverage than the draft setting. This can print borderless (with some tweaking between my applications and the printer settings). By default, it can't print borderless on plain paper.

** "NORMAL" I pretty much use this setting to print proofs for corporate approval. It takes around 10-15 seconds per page, and can print borderless on plain paper (again with some tweaking of the application and printer settings).

** "BEST QUALITY" Smooth, full-color borderless prints. This setting does take about 30 seconds or less per page to print, but on a good photo paper, and for where it matters, the output is exceptional. It's very difficult to tell by the naked eye the difference between this and say a drugstore print.

HANDLING/VARIOUS PAPER TYPES: This feature impressed me the most because I use several different types of paper throughout the day; usually plain paper, but often a page or two of cardstock, glossy, photo, brochure paper, labels, even envelopes. After using this for close to 5 months now, it's never misfed once, even without adjusting the paper settings. (although it clearly cautions against loading different papers, like cardstock on top of plain paper, or vice versa, I'm often in too much of a hurry to get things printed and slap the appropriate paper on top, but don't tell the IT department that).

INK USAGE/COST: I felt a little sheepish when, after about a month, the printer chimed a non-obtrusive message (on the printer itself--not popping up some stupid window on my PC, nearly killing my PC already maxxed out for resources) saying that one of the ink cartridges was running low. What's nice is that it continues to print (actually several pages beyond the warning) before you notice a real difference in printing. AND, it gives you the option to continue printing in black and white if the cartridge is completely empty (Hello?) Being the only brat in our corporation to have such an awesome printer at my sole disposal (although I'm also the only graphics person), I felt a little guilty asking the purchasing ladies for new cartridges, fearing they'd cost easily $20 a piece, and my printer takes 6 of them. Of course, they're not quite the prima donnas as the IT department (sound familiar anyone?), and happily suggested that they should stock up on the cartridges for me so I don't run out. They handed me the catalog and told me to look up the right cartridges. I found the right cartridges and they only ran about $8 a piece! I almost fell over. They happily bought "in bulk" which saved them even more money. (So I don't know the actual bulk price, but it averages about 15-20% below corporate office supplier catalogs.)

They even have a larger black ink cartridge that is about twice the size of the other 5. Although the cartridges themselves are tiny, they print A LOT of pages before even running low. AND, when they're finally empty, they're *empty*. I've only had to replace the black cartridge once after several months of mixed usage.

FAX:This does have standard and color fax capabilities. Although I don't use this function at work, I could definitely see this as a benefit for any small business to receive faxes, although the lack of an automated document feeder would be a definite hinderance (how often do you send a single page fax? Which, in this case means you would have to scan each page on the flatbed, individually, before sending).

I HAD to give the IT department a huge "high five" when I "accidently" printed photos on the special photo paper handler. When they set up the printer, I never bothered to notice the "photo paper" handler, which sits in between the regular paper feeder and the output tray (which, the IT department conveniently loaded with the free photo paper included with the printer), and was in a hissy-fit printing session, wondering why my prints weren't coming out and I got a notification that the "photo paper tray" wasn't properly closed. Within seconds of a meltdown, I went through the routine of closing everything and noticed I hadn't pushed the output tray down completely the last time I refilled. Within seconds, print after print of a company photo (of course) flipped out underneath the normal output tray. They were printed borderless and on just a normal setting, the output was fabulous, even better than the hardcopies of the same photos sent to me interoffice, which had been processed at a regular Wal-something or other. I handled them delicately at first (used to the "wet" output of most printers) but soon realized they were completely dry to the touch, no bleeding, no flowing, no oversaturation.

I'm so thrilled with this printer that I can't wait until they become a little cheaper (less than $300) to buy one for myself at home. This would absolutely fit my home use needs perfectly.

What's the real kicker is because, rather than having to make the initial purchase myself (as most home users), I've been able to test it out on a daily basis at work over a period of several months, with almost every printing variable possible. I have never had a paper jam or any problems, even with heavy usage over a 4 month period.

**UPDATE 1/4/08) I've now used this for almost a year and it STILL has *NEVER* jammed and continues to print and perform exactly as when I first got it, even with daily, *heavy*, full color usage on several different types of paper. I even printed out 50 legal-sized posters recently and someone asked where I had them printed. This printer is a keeper.